In February the Government announced its intention to re-organise local government across Sussex as well as a handful of other local authority areas in England. They launched a consultation to ask for local people’s views on the way ahead. That consultation is open until April 13th 2025 and can be found here https://tinyurl.com/43e99k4k
At the heart of Establishing a Mayoral Combined County Authority across East Sussex, West Sussex and Brighton and Hove is the proposal to create a new elected mayor for the whole of Sussex overseeing three unitary authorities. The Mayor will also take on the functions of the current Sussex Police and Crime Commissioner. Whilst the City of Brighton & Hove is already a unitary authority, the proposal is for all the district and boroughs councils in West Sussex to be abolished and their responsibilities to be rolled into a new West Sussex Unitary Authority which will take over from the West Sussex County Council. The same will happen with East Sussex and the component local councils there.
The full details of what the new authorities will look like, whether their boundaries will change and how the new Mayor of Sussex will interact with them are yet to be decided which is why it is important for everyone to have their say in the consultation. I am very concerned that the borders of the City of Brighton & Hove may be expanded to ‘gobble up’ council areas like Adur and Worthing in my old constituency which I know would be very unwelcome locally. That is why I am supporting the petition by East Worthing & Shoreham Conservatives to resist this which you can sign through the link below.
East Worthing and Shoreham | Conservatives
However, it is clear that these changes are a priority for the new Government and it is highly likely that the reorganisation will go ahead in some form or other and a new Mayor of Sussex will be elected in May 2026, whilst elections to the other unitary bodies will follow in subsequent years.
Based on the experience of other elected ‘metro mayors’ in places like West Yorkshire and Tees Valley the new mayor is likely to be contested on a party-political basis with independents able to throw their hat in the ring as well. I have therefore decided to put my name forward for the nomination to be the official Conservative candidate for Sussex Mayor. It will be up to Conservative Party members across the whole of Sussex to select their candidate later this year and the other political parties will have similar procedures, and then every voter across Sussex will be able to cast their vote for their preferred candidate in May 2026.
My campaign
At this stage I am seeking to be the official Conservative candidate for the post of Sussex Mayor. That will be decided by paid-up Conservative Party members living in Sussex at some stage over the next few months. Several hustings for the interested candidates are planned. Only if I am successful in becoming the official Conservative candidate will I then be asking for the votes of all Sussex residents in the May 2026 election. If you are a Conservative Party member in Sussex and would like to keep in touch with my campaign, or better still help out, you can let me know below.
I have deliberately left many of my previous postings on this website from my time as an MP so you can see the range of activities and campaigns I was involved with over my 27 years in Parliament.